


The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

by Plenoptic



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Pining, long distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 12:06:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16974300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plenoptic/pseuds/Plenoptic
Summary: Suspended between a much-loved past and an uncertain future, Optimus and Elita try to collapse the distance.





	The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lifotni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lifotni/gifts).



> Y'all the girl I'm head over heels for lives a very long way away so here's this
> 
> E rating is for fairly intimate fairly weird robot sex

_I’m bored._

 Optimus Prime quirks an optic ridge and glances to his right out of pure instinct. He’s so sure Elita will be sitting there that it takes him several astroseconds to realize that it’s Ironhide frowning back at him, mouthing _What_? Elita’s text blinks in the corner of his vision. He gives Ironhide an apologetic shake of his head and reorients his body so that he’s approximately facing Prowl, who is handing out his fourth set of datapads. Optimus is dimly aware that he’s lost sensation in his lower legs.

  _That makes two of us._ A warm pulse over their sparklink. Optimus is quick to reign in his EM field; won’t do to sit and tickle Ironhide.

  _Ooh, let me guess. Prowl gets to lead the debriefing today._

 _Got it in one._ Optimus accepts a datapad for his growing collection with a nod, doing his utmost not to let Prowl see that his attention has been diverted from the SIC’s careful reporting. _Shouldn’t you be working?_

_I am. And I’m bored. So talk to me._

_About?_

  _I don’t know. Anything. Tell me how much you miss me._

 Optimus restrains a chuckle, pretending to dutifully follow Prowl’s annotations through a datapad that approaches three terabytes of itemized supply lists. _I miss you terribly._

  _Nice. Now tell me something dirty._

 He does sigh out loud at that one, pointedly ignoring the questioning glances he gets from a few bots seated around the table. He could swear Chromia shoots a grin in his direction before Prowl tells her off for not paying attention. _It’s not really a good time._

  _Seems like a perfect time to me._

  _Elita._

 _Optimus,_ she replies, one word, and even through the text he can hear the sing-song of her tone, see her grinning. Another message comes through. It has an image attached.

  _I’m not opening that_ , he writes back at once.

  _Who are you trying to convince, yourself or me?_

 I’m not opening that, he tells himself sternly. _I’m going to pay attention to this meeting now._

_Are you, though?_

_I am. And I will speak to you tonight._

_Don’t think it’ll be that long._

  _Good bye,_ he messages, with all the resolute solemnity he can muster so that she’ll feel it over their bond, as well. He receives a wild, almost giddy burst of amusement in return. The unopened image continues to blink in the corner of his vision. He folds his hands on the table and leans forward, listening intently to Prowl, who is walking through page three of four hundred thousand, eight hundred and sixty two oh frag he just opened it. Some force of will that couldn’t possibly have been his own opens, downloads, and archives Elita’s little gift before he’s even made sense of what it is he’s looking at.

 He lets Prowl get to page four before he stands abruptly and announces that, unfortunately, an urgent matter requires his attention, and can they reconvene later?

 

* * *

 

 

“Hi.”

 Elita’s voice is soft. Near. Optimus, half in recharge, reaches blindly across the berth to pull her closer, and unshutters his optics when he finds cool berth instead. A few moments pass before he realizes she’s speaking over their comm link. He groans and rolls onto his back, passing a hand over his optics.

 “Elita?”

 “Sorry. Woke you up?”

 “I wasn’t really recharging.”

 “Mm.”

 A silence. Optimus frowns. “Are you alright?”

 “Yes. I am.” Another long pause. Her reticence scares him a little. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

 Optimus sits up on the berth, massaging his chestplates to ward off a developing ache. “I’m right here,” he says lowly, resting his weight against the wall and shuttering his optics.

 “Yeah.” The silence is longer yet this time, teetering over something.

 Optimus eases his way into their sparkbond, which is tight and cold. The ache in his chest progresses rapidly to a dull throb. “Sweetspark,” he says at length, prods her gently.

 “Sorry.” Her voice cracks. “I’m sorry. I wish you were here—or that I was there, or—or that—I’m sorry. Today was… hard.”

 Optimus glances at the chronometer. If he goes into recharge right this instant, he’ll squeeze in a few joors before his shift starts. He leans across the berth and passes a hand over its luminous display, turning it off. He settles back against the wall and immerses himself in their sparklink.

 “Talk to me.”

 

* * *

 

 

Optimus sets down his cube of energon, frowning, drumming his fingers on the countertop as he scans his quarters. He’s just now realizing how dreary it looks, all gray walls, gray appliances. He runs a thumb along the nearest wall, inspects it closely. Never been painted, from the looks of it. It occurs to him—a number of realizations, actually, all crashing into one another while his processor races to catch up—that this war isn’t going to end, not for a long time. That this _is_ his life now, these gray walls. That they can’t return to the barely furnished but brightly painted, dirt-cheap apartment in downtown Iacon, the one right above the club and its permanent thudding bassline. That these gray walls and appliances and shelves entirely devoid of her knick-knacks and collections, the ones that used to irritate him so because they were _everywhere_ , in every conceivable corner of their shared space—this is all they have, now.

 He stands very still, staring at one patch of gray wall, struggling to make sense of this—trying to discern why it would only occur to him _now_ , after all this time. Why did it never occur to him to wonder what had become of Ariel’s collection of minerals from other planets? What had become of their old apartment? What colors were its walls? Had someone else moved in? He looks down at his body, frowning, feeling alien in his own plating. He wouldn’t fit in their old berth, not anymore. That much is certain.

 Still looking around the walls as if he’s never seen them before, Optimus pings his comm link. “Sunstreaker?”

 A pause, and then— “Hey, boss. What’s good?”

 “A question—how much paint do you happen to have?”

 “Depends. What’re you painting?”

 Optimus hums, turning himself in a circle, panning the quarters which are his now, his and hers, theirs. For which he has never missed a rent payment, because he’s never paid rent on these quarters, and how absurd that is, to live in a place with no fear that they’ll be removed, with every fear that they might not make it back alive to these gray walls.

 “Everything.”

 

* * *

 

 

Optimus is entering his fourth straight joor of uninterrupted paperwork when his interface protocols abruptly kick online. He pauses, stylus suspended over half a signature on a requisitions request, and frowns off into space as his fans kick on. He pings a query to Elita and receives no response. Either her comm link is off, or she is in recharge. No sooner has he weighed the thought than an exceptionally hot wave pours through their sparklink, and he grabs the edge of his desk, sucking in a startled intake. He sends her another query marked urgent, which should pop up even if her comm is muted, and still receives no response. She’s recharging, then. And dreaming. And _how_.

 Scrambling a little, he leaps up from his desk and hurries across his office, engaging the mag lock. He can’t even begin to fathom what playback loop her processor must be engaging that it would affect him like this, how deeply she must be recharging to have so little control over what filters through their link—he stifles a shout when his spark positively _twists_ , prompting his chestplates to expand, seams in his armor opening to release some of the heat pouring off the corona of his spark.

 Optimus sinks onto his aft, back to the door, and shudders through another hot wave of arousal gripping his spark.

 “Prime,” a voice in his audio says, making him nearly jump out of his plating, “are you quite alright? You’re looking pained.”

 His spark searing, he gathers himself enough to realize that it’s Red Alert—who definitely keeps a security camera online in his office at all times. “Red Alert—yes, I’m fine. Elita is going through—something. Can we—can I have a few breems’ privacy, please?”

 “Of course, sir. Closing security feed now. Please alert me when I can bring it back online.”

 “Thank you. Prime out.”

 He closes and mutes his comm link with relief, letting himself shudder and shake a little more freely when he sees the blinking light of the camera mounted in the upper corner of his office go out. And not a moment too soon—during his lapse in attention his interface protocols have raced ahead with cheerful vigor, opening his crotchplates and activating every available bit of his interface array. It’s hardly a surprise that his spike is extending, but he isn’t expecting the throbbing in his valve so deep that he has to bite down a whine at the intensity of its emptiness, his body’s desperation to be otherwise. Intakes wheezing a little, he lets his knees fall open and presses a hand over his optics, desperately trying to race ahead of his protocols, cut them off before they can run further amok—another breem or so and he’ll be desperate enough to coax himself to overload, but it’s one thing for he and Elita to laughingly fantasize about defiling his office and _entirely another to actually do it_ —

 “Optimus?” Her voice, a little groggy with recharge—and, presumably, from the same affliction shaking his own frame—crackling through his comm makes him weak with relief.

 “Good morning,” he laughs, voice quivering, and presses a hand over his chestplates, trying to steady his racing intakes, the aching flares of his spark. “You’ve been— _mh_ —dreaming, love.”

 “I’ve been…” She trails off for a moment, and then bursts into giggles. “Oh, Pit. I’m so sorry. Frag me, Optimus, where are you now?”

 “My office. No worries, I’m alone.”

 “ _Frag_ ,” she repeats. “I was—yeah. Teach me to do too much reminiscing before recharge. Are you okay?”

 “I’m—compromised, to say the least.” He props his elbows on his knees and rests his helm on his arms, reigning in his racing intakes.

 “Hey,” she says, her voice hushed, thick with static, “neural map with me.”

 “Lita, I’m…”

 “I know. But I want you.”

 He shudders, answers the distant request that floats through his systems. It would be easier and quicker through a physical uplink, but their systems are joined, linked, two halves of a two-way network. Their sparkbound bodies are a single conduit.

 “Arms up, Optimus.”

 He resists for all of a microklik before the delicate sensory array around his valve lights up, responding to a touch that isn’t there, and he bites down hard on his own glossa to silence a shout before he lifts his arms, linking his hands behind his helm. Linked thus, she has control over his neural net, can instruct—with some lagtime—which sensors should fire when. The hyper-sensitive pressure sensors in his mouthplates and jaw flare, and he tips his chin back, half-convinced for just a breath that she really is lifting his face to kiss him, that those really are her hands cradling his jaw and throat, that the sudden aching of his spike is from her valve struggling to open around him—

 “I love you,” she murmurs, and it’s impossible to tell whether it’s whispered over their comm link or whether she’s simply instructed his audios to register sound that isn’t there—but there’s no mistaking the way she settles into his spark, reaching into him, pulling him out of his own body and into hers, and Optimus tips over into overload, unable to register where touch ends and sensation begins.

 

* * *

 

 Halfway through, he sends her a photo, as close-cropped as he can get it, of two different blues. Appends the caption, _Which one?_ , and marks it urgent. She responds a breem later, both with a warm, bemused pulse along their bond, and with a quick text— _For what?_

 He smiles. _Just tell me which you like better._

  _Upgrading your finish? I like you in the dark blue._ A soft pulse, a little hotter, a little cheeky. _Looks good when it melts onto me, too._

  _Lita_ , he chides. _Just tell me._

  _The one on the right. Reminds me of your old paint scheme._

 He pauses. She’s right—Orion did have a preference for lighter blues. He chooses not to linger on that too long. _Thank you_ , he messages, and doesn’t respond to the series of queries she sends afterward.

 

* * *

 

 

His proximity sensors jolt him out of recharge—there’s another body in his quarters. His battle protocols are already clicking online before he realizes that this is neither a shellshock dream nor a neural echo of her presence. In the few astroseconds it takes for his optics to adjust in the dark, Optimus sits up and gropes forward, grasps her hand, pulls her into him.

 “Hi,” Elita laughs, before he takes her face in his hands and kisses her, floods their bond with every ounce of adoration and ardor he can muster until she shivers and goes lax in his embrace, lets him drown her. He draws her into their berth, flips her over, runs a hand over her body and coaxes her into response—chestplates opening, the slick warmth of his interface array skating over hers until someone fits in somewhere, sparks surging forward past the safe limits of their casings. He chases her down through their bond, pins her, holds her, kisses her laughing mouth until she is gasping for him, pleading quietly, hands clutching at his back, grasping on like her life depends on it while the Prime takes her.

 

* * *

 

 

“I love it.”

 He traces a hand down the center of her back, humming, brushing his mouthplates across her audio, her helm, anywhere he can reach. The sunlight is young and watery, just barely illuminating the walls of their quarters, the bright splashes of color that weren’t there when she left. Elita smiles, nestling a little more snugly against her mate’s wide chest, optics roving over the new décor.

 “Looks like our old place.”

 “That was my intention.” His hands can’t settle on her body—he wants to touch her, all of her, all at once. He somehow misses her _more_ now that she’s home, like the orns of her absence are all just now catching up with him.

 “Why now?”

 “Why not?”

 She smiles, presses a kiss to the central seam of his chestplates, still a little too hot. “Fair enough.” She sits up, ignoring his protesting whine, and looks at the other side of the room. “You realize, of course, that you’ve missed two walls.”

 He pushes himself up onto his elbows, shrugging. “You remember, don’t you?” She turns back to him, touches his face, brushes her thumb along his mouthplates. There’s something heated and deliberate in the way she looks at his mouth that reminds him so fiercely of Ariel that his spark nearly turns over. “You used to paint. You used to practice on the walls—paint over everything when there was no room left, start all over.”

 “Yeah,” she says, slowly, carefully. “Yeah. I remember.” A long pause, as heavy as the ones that plagued their late conversation orns ago. He wraps his arms around her waist to pull her closer, trailing kisses along her back. “I don’t know what I’d paint now,” she says finally.

 “Whatever you’d like.”

 Elita hums, pushes herself off the berth, enjoys the way his hand trails along her hip and aft as she leaves, like he’s reluctant to part even so briefly. He’s left a few cans of paint and some scraggled-looking brushes. She picks one up to inspect it and snorts.

 “Sunstreaker gave you the worst of his stuff.”

 Optimus sighs. “I couldn’t tell.”

 “Which he was counting on. Did you pay him for it?”

 “Of course.”

 “Make sure you get your credits back.” Elita scoops up two cans and a brush and returns to the berth, plopping herself down at Optimus’s side. She slips two fingers into his valve just for the sake of it, just to watch his hips shift and his intakes hitch just so, his optics darken as he watches her touch him, watches her slip her fingers free and trail her wet fingertips along the surface of the blue he’s splashed all over two of their walls.

 She touches her fingertips to his chest, paints an idle glyph on his armor. “Open for me,” she murmurs, and he does, chestplates parting, his spark flaring bright when she paints two long streaks of blue on his sparkcase.

 “Primus,” he breathes—a tension coiled in his powerful body, arching his back off the berth, wanting nothing more than to shutter his optics, terrified to look away. “I’m dreaming.”

 She shakes her helm, just once, seats herself on his hips. His hands stroke along the hollow of her waist. She cradles a hand to the back of his helm, finding the uplink port hidden beneath his helmet, feels him shudder beneath her as she slips into his systems, finds his neural net, manipulates it expertly.

 “No,” she murmurs, and says his name— _Orion_ in his audio, a gentle twist in his audio networks so he hears _Optimus_ , simultaneously. “No, love. You’re not.”


End file.
